


Five things that never happened to Tony Stark because he wasn't born a girl...and one thing that would have happened anyway

by vtn



Category: Iron Man (Movieverse)
Genre: AU, F/F, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I pose the question, how would Tony Stark's life have been different if he had been a she?  And what would have remained the same?  Contains spoilers for both Iron Man movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five things that never happened to Tony Stark because he wasn't born a girl...and one thing that would have happened anyway

**one.**  
"Antonia Evelyn Stark!" calls Maria, her hands on her hips. "You are going to be late for cotillion if you don't get down here this instant!"

"One minute, Mom!" Toni yells down.

"All right Toni, I am counting," Maria shouts back. "60 Mississippi, 59 Mississippi..." She makes it to "three Mississippi" before Toni emerges in the stairwell.

In fatigues.

There is grease smeared across her face and hands, and she is holding a wrench in her right.

"Do you think we're gonna learn the foxtrot today?" says Toni. She cocks her head, then looks at the wrench in her hand like she didn't realize she was holding it, and puts it down. "I love the foxtrot."

**two.**  
They violated her in Afghanistan.

She doesn't remember the first few days after the attack too well. She remembers blinking and waking up surrounded by men speaking furiously in languages she doesn't understand. She remembers them operating on her, remembers the IV drip and the bandages. She remembers her sleep patterns controlled by a chloroform-soaked rag.

She remembers one of the Ten Rings men—the big, bearded one, the one she'd later leave at the mercy of the starving city of Gulmira—grabbing her chin, looking into her eyes, shoving dirty fingers into her pants, between her legs. She remembers thinking vaguely that she'd need Jarvis to check for infections when she got home (if). Otherwise, she remembers feeling nothing.

She remembers the writing on the bomb that took out the 'funvee'—she'd know that design anywhere, and she remembers seeing it repeated over and over in the mountain hideout. Stark Industries weapons. _Her_ weapons. The weapons she has guarded closely all her life, has only reluctantly shared, and only when she gets to name the price.

They violated her in Afghanistan.

**three.**  
"Come on, just one look?"

"Fine." Toni rolls her eyes, unbuttons her shirt.

The arc reactor is tiny and perfect. Toni herself is still in awe of it, of its soft blue light that hums gently, of the sharp cleanness of its design.

Obie whistles, looks it up and down, looks _her_ up and down. "Very nice," he says.

So Toni punches him in the face.

**four.**  
Toni Stark walks into the workshop with a cup of coffee and an armful of newspapers and magazines, whistling, and lays them out on the work bench. She looks at them for a while.

Then she picks up her mug of coffee and throws it at a window, which shatters pleasingly.

"I am _not_ psychologically damaged!" she shouts, pounding her fists on the table, making all her screens blink to life, displays and readouts shining all around her. "Jarvis," she says, waving a particularly annoying magazine that was comparing two photographs of her and asking if she'd developed an eating disorder after Afghanistan, "Please tell me I'm still capable of running a goddamn company."

"Ma'am, I would prefer to answer that question when you are not holding something that might become a projectile," Jarvis intones, pleasant as always.

"Answer the question, Jarvis," she says, putting down the magazine. "Am I damaged goods? Am I broken?"

"Ms. Stark, according to my records," Jarvis says, "you are functioning at normal psychological capacity, with some slight post-traumatic shock in reaction to immersing your head in water." (Wouldn't anyone? Toni thinks.)

"You know what," Toni says, reaching across the table. She picks up a certain metal mask, holds it up to her face. Looks at her reflection in the glass. No one would be able to compare 'before' and 'after' shots now, look for new lines in her face, ask if her eyes look lifeless and inert. In fact....no one would even know she's...

"Jarvis, get me a new cup of coffee."

"Certainly, Ms. Stark."

**five.**  
In Monaco, Toni Stark becomes the first woman ever to race in the Grand Prix. Technically, she is also the first woman ever to win the Grand Prix, because they award honorary medals to her and the other drivers who are injured or killed in Vanko's rampage.

But Toni doesn't care much for technicalities. Besides, there's always next year.

**one.**  
In the aftermath of probably the most insane day in Toni's life, she finds herself kissing Pepper so she doesn't have to give an answer, and without a doubt she is soaring, this is the best thing she's ever felt.

Even when Rhodey bursts out laughing, compares them to "two seals fighting over a grape," it doesn't take the feeling away, that breathless wonder, that utter lightness—of falling in love.

It's not something Toni has ever really felt before, but it's something she's going to try to do more of in the future, she thinks, as her and Pepper's hands find each other in the darkness.

AMS  
July 3-5, 2010

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why I didn't look up whether a woman had ever entered the Monaco Grand Prix back when I wrote this. Toni would not have been the first! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_Formula_One_drivers (note added 2015-10-16)


End file.
